[Sticky] Snap Verdicts

I thought the opening was good, you certainly made the case for better together (who turned out to win, shocker). Was interesting when you went to attack other MPs who are fighting other battles, when pressed you didn’t want to name them. You also defended the Prime Minister , a sign of a close alliance between Labour and the Liberal Democrats in coalition. I very much felt you couldn’t have done much more in this section, so good job.

Budget/Capital spending

So the public would be interested to know if it was you who wrote the first budget as the leaks suggested and you certainly didn’t entertain that leak. I felt you handled yourself well here, you didn’t lose your temper and you remained on point. Paxman tried to catch you out here and wrong foot you but you swerved that obstacle. As for capital spending, you deflected to a ministerial statement and added in some key policies such as the Investment Development Bank and the green stimulus programme, this would have pleased your supporters. Your critics will be wondering if the Government can afford all this.

Reform bill

Paxman made a specific point here about asking if the Government would use the Parliament act to force the reform bill through. You pledged to work with the Lords if the disagreements are constructive, we will certainly see but you did well here.

Overall

A strong performance from Graham Adiputera. The Deputy Prime Minister is becoming popular amongst the electorate and this interview only reinforced that, good work.

Macmillan builds a neat narrative for the viewer, starting with a broken Labour promise on the deficit and transitioning through the cost of interest payments to the relationship between fiscal responsibility and public services. The whole thing got tied together nicely in the final question, although I felt like parts of 5 and 6 may have been better the other way around. He let Suchet away with a number of comments that stretched credulity or the truth a little, although PMQs is not a great forum for a fact-checking, and the messaging might have suffered had he intervened.

Suchet found a number of good responses, tying issues back to the Conservatives' record, to the parties respective positions on taxation, and making the case for investment. Suchet was at her best when combining both a defence of policy with a witty comment or attack on the opposition, with press reaction noticing her substantial improvement in this more theatrical side of PMQ.

A few of the answers fell a little flat to me: Arguing the Tories have no social care policy when Labour's is to ask the public what they think, saying Macmillan “brings chaos to everywhere”, telling Alex Salmond to vote Labour: they just don't quite ring true to me (although Labour supporters would have relished the Salmond line).

As a result, the session comes out as a win for Macmillan, albeit by a small margin, much narrower than previous encounters.

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